Words
When I was a child,
Words were my refuge.
Words on a page, in my head, or, rarely, whispered aloud
Kept me safe.
The thing about words
Is how absolutely concrete
And utterly subjective
The experience of a word can be
Safe
What is it to be safe?
It is to feel secure in your surroundings
It is to be free from harm
Is that, then, really what the words did?
Were they keeping me safe?
Or were they merely providing a shelter
For the danger I had around me?
Danger
Harm
How dangerous are things, really, if they don’t kill you?
Are those things perhaps the most harmful of all?
What is it to be safe in a moment,
As a child,
If the feeling of safety
Fails to bleed into adulthood?
Feeling
What is it to feel?
Truly and genuinely,
I am not sure I’ve ever felt before
I was never safe to feel
I was never free from danger
I stored my harm inside words and locked them away
Thinking the words would hold that feeling forever
But, as it turns out,
Forever is just a word, too
#language #meaning #change #healing #processing